I think that our fascination with ruins and abandoned buildings began with the TV show MacGyver (not to discount our unconditional love for movies like The Goonies and Indiana Jones). For some reason, the most exciting MacGyver episodes always featured dodgy forsaken warehouses and factories. I could also add the long hours spent playing Tomb Raiders exploring desolated fictional universes.

For these reasons, we love Michael John Grist’s blog dedicated to those faded memories of more glorious pasts that can be found around the world. Here’s a selection of some of the pictures that we really like. But please also check out Grist’s website to see a lot more picture galleries of places he has visited or simply curated from the web.